


i'm damned if i do, and i'm damned if i don't (so here's to drinks in the dark at the end of my road)

by Junkyard_Rose



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/M, First War with Voldemort, M/M, MWPP, Marauders, Promiscuous Character, Randomness, Sad, idk how to tag, just read the thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-04
Updated: 2014-06-04
Packaged: 2018-02-03 09:27:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1739621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Junkyard_Rose/pseuds/Junkyard_Rose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“It’s the end, of such a good life.”//six people, and the ends of their worlds</p>
            </blockquote>





	i'm damned if i do, and i'm damned if i don't (so here's to drinks in the dark at the end of my road)

**Author's Note:**

> this was meant to be something else entirely but my word run away with me sorry not sorry

It started on a train and it ends on a train, but not really.  
   “Hey, Evans, we should get married.”  
   It’s a casual request, and it’s met with a “Whatever you want, darling,” because the red-headed girl is eighteen years old and positive he’s joking.  
   He’s not, and they tie the knot less than a week later in forgotten office in the Ministry of Magic; _James and Lily Potter, and doesn’t it sound great?  
_    (Her best friend shakes her head, and says it’s the beginning of the end, but she’s wrong. Really, it’s the end of the beginning, and it’s glorious)

…

The Order of the Phoenix, they call it, and five kids join it together.  
   (because they’re kids, not matter what they say or what the law says, they’re still only kids)  
   “Arrogant pureblood bastard,” says one, eying off a suspected Death Eater; they’re on a stake-out, and it’s cold, and boring, and it’s _glorious_ because it’s the Right Thing To Do.  
   “I know you are, darling,” says his wife, patting him on the back. “Don’t beat yourself up about it.”  
   “I wasn’t talking about me. Anyway, I’m not arrogant because I’m a pureblood,” argues he. “I’m arrogant because I’m _awesome."  
   _“And here was me thinking you’d grown up,” his wife muses fondly. There’s a life just beginning in lower belly, but neither of them know it yet.

…

“I can’t, Mum, you know I can’t.”  
   “But it’s your sister’s _wedding,_ Lily, why ever not? And the baby’ll be there, the one you’ve not even _met_ yet, and little Dudley’s not that bad, and since you’re pregnant yourself you might want some tips –“  
   “Mum, I’m fighting a _war_. I’m a _soldier_. I can’t take a weekend off because my sister – who’s not spoken to me for almost two years – is getting married!”  
   “But the baby –“  
   “Whose baby? Mine or hers? No, look, Mum, it doesn’t matter, we’re in _hiding_ at the moment. I shouldn’t even be calling you, but they’re yet to get into the muggle phone lines so we’re safe for now, but you need to listen to me when I tell you _I can’t come to Petunia’s wedding_.”  
   “I’m not asking you to stay the whole time, just pop in, bring James, say _hello_ , dear, it’s been months since I’ve seen you –“  
   “I’ve got to go, Mum, I’m sorry, I’ll see you soon, okay?”  
   Mrs Grace Evans is murdered in her bed two nights later, and Lily never does get to see her again.

…

“There’s a spy within the Order,” is the rumour, passed around like a grotesque game of Chinese Whispers; Dumbledore’s original “We must entertain the idea of a spy within the Order,” becomes “There may be a spy in the Order,” and then, “We think there’s a spy in the order,” and soon, “There’s a spy in the Order, did you hear?”  
    “Did you hear about the spies in the Order?”, a young witch or wizard will whisper to his or her friend.  “Smith told me there’s a spy, my money’s on Lupin, can’t trust a werewolf…” another with relay.“Lupin’s a spy, they reckon he’s selling us out to the werewolves,” is circling soon enough.  
    “It’s not me,” insists a young man to his friends in the dead of the night. “It’s not me, you’ve got to believe me, it’s not me.”  
   “I believe you,” says one of his friends, but his tone is doubtful.  
   “I believe you, Remus,” says another, a little too truthfully.

…

“He’s so tiny,” says the redheaded woman (even though she’s barely more than a girl) in something like awe. “So, so tiny.”  
   “He’s so ugly,” says her husband, in a similar tone, and she doesn’t lift her adoring eyes from the baby to order, “Nurse, hit him on the back of the head for me.”  
   “With pleasure,” says the nurse, and does just that. Her name is Marlene, she’s a soldier by night, and in three weeks she will be dead along with her husband and her two small children.  
   But that’s not until three weeks. Right now, Marlene’s smile lights up the world wherever she goes, and her youngest has just learnt to say _Mummy_. She’s living a good life, and she’s happy, for now, and in the end that’s all that really matters.

…

“Hey, um, Lily?”  
   “Yes, darling?”  
   “I wrapped Harry up in a cloak and put him for a nap, but I, um, forgot where.”  
   “…please tell me that by _cloak_ you don’t mean _invisibility cloak_.”  
   “…”  
   “ _James!_ ”

…

“Come on, say ‘Mummy’.”  
   “No, no, say ‘Daddy’.”  
   “Harry, mate, come on, say ‘Pads’. Say my name, come on, Harry.”  
   “He’s not going to say ‘Pads’, you tosser, he’s _my_ son.”  
   “He’s _our_ son, so, he’s going to say ‘Mummy’, aren’t you, love?”  
   “…Moony!”  
   “…no fucking _way_.”  
   “Don’t swear around the baby, Sirius!”  
   “REMUS! What have you done to my SON!?”  
   “He’s _our_ son, darling, you didn’t make him yourself.”  
   “COME UP HERE, REMUS! I NEED TO KICK YOU IN THE KNEECAP! THAT WAS MY KID’S FIRST WORD YOU BASTARD!”  
   [insert x1 hysterically giggling werewolf here.]  
   It’s a good life, for now.

…

“Hey, Lily?”  
   “Yes, darling?”  
   “I just wanted to tell you, in case we die tomorrow, I love you.”  
   “And I you, darling.”  
   (They don’t die tomorrow; they’ve still got a few more months of such a good life)

…

“Hey, Pads?” a shuffling in the darkness; they’re sharing a flat, them three, since Prongs finally got his gal and brought a house and created a baby, and Moony has taken to crawling into Padfoot’s bed in the dark of the night when the nightmares get to loud and he can’t sleep.  
   “Yeah, Moony?”  
   “You know I’m not the spy, right?”  
   “Whatever you say, Moony. You getting in or not?”  
   Hesitation. “You don’t believe me.”  
   “It’s four am, Moony, I wouldn’t believe you told me the moon was round.”  
   …  
   “Bad example, sorry. Are you getting in bed or what?”  
   “No. No, it’s fine.”  
   It is, now, the beginning of the end.  
   The end of such a good life.

…

It started for them in a dorm, a dorm with four boys who don’t really know each other, one who thinks he’s not brave enough (and in the end he’s not), one who thinks he’s not good enough (he’s more than good enough, only he doesn’t know it), one who’s proud to follow in the footsteps of his father (and will, right up to matching heroic death trying to save the loves of their lives), and one who’s surprised to think he might be good after all (he is good, he is, through heartbreak and madness and a dark future, he’s _good_ ).  
   “Sirius Black, and you are?”  
   “Lupin. Remus Lupin.”  
   “Nice to meet you, Lupin. Nice facial scar, how’d you get it?”  
   (Subtle like a brick to the face, that's Sirius Black)  
   It’s such a shame they never go to act on those not-so-friendly feelings; such a shame, only that one time they did –

….

It’s a cold, crisp afternoon and they’re lazing about in the dorm, sprawled out on Remus’ bed because they’ve never had anything close to ‘personal space’, these two, no boundaries, none at all.  
   James is off with Lily being sickeningly in love, and Peter’s off elsewhere, doing something, they don’t know what because Peter’s developed _secrets_ lately, secrets they’d never care to find out until it was too late, too late.  
   Remus is trying to study, but Sirius has rolled over to flop over his back and rest his chin on Remus’ shoulder, and Remus can’t concentrate because he can feel Sirius’ breath on his neck.  
   “Goblin wars, Moon-love, really?”  
   “Don’t call me that,” he snaps back automatically. _Don’t call me something with ‘love’ in it because I think I might love you and this is all too much to deal with Sirius please_.  
   “Sorry, moonshine,” says Sirius, which isn’t much better, and he’s practically _nuzzling_ Remus’ shoulder not to mention _lying on top of him and  
   _ Remus isn’t sure how but on minute he’s lying on his stomach and reading and the next he’d being pressed down into the mattress by Sirius and being snogged for all he’s worth –  
   and then it’s over and Sirius is gone, and at dinner he asks Mary Mac to go round with him and she honest-to-Merlin _squeals_ and says _yes of course Sirius I’ve liked you for ages you know_.  
   Two days later, Dorky Meadows (who’s really anything but ‘dorky’, and actually quite ‘slutty’) corners Remus and asks if he wants to shag, he says yes without thinking about it and tucks that one kiss away in the back of his mind where it won’t bother him until years later and he’s reading a newspaper article about the boy who gave it to him being sent to prison, for life, without a trial, for mass murder and being a Death Eater.  
   _I’m not the spy,_ Remus had said. And he wasn’t.  
   But seeing the laughing madman in the paper, he almost wishes he was.

…

“Lily, take Harry and go, I’ll hold him off!”  
   Blood magic, old magic. James doesn’t have a chance and she knows she doesn’t either, but her Harry does.  
   Harry does.  
   “Stand aside, you silly girl.”  
   She’s anything but silly, and she’s no longer a girl; war and death and loss have made her into a woman, and as a woman she will die. _There’s nothing in this world like a mother’s love_ , her mother used to say to her, when she was just a little girl. _Nothing in the world_.  
   There is nothing in the world like a mother’s love, and Harry will have a chance.

…

There’s a beat she taps out with her two-inch talon like fingernails. _Tap, tap-tap-tap, tap-tap, tap-tap, tap.  
_    In school, she called herself _Dorky_ because she liked the irony. She was a slut, a skank, that one girl who gets written about on bathroom walls. She’s a half-blood, and she never knew her mother, her father was scared of her magic and all she ever wanted was to have her Daddy back. She hates Minerva McGonagall with a passion, because if she hadn’t shown up on her eleventh birthday she would never have known about this world and she’d still be her Daddy’s little girl and she wouldn’t be sitting in the darkness, tapping out a rhythm with her two-inch nails and waiting for the Dark Lord to come kill her.  
   She’s always been smarter than she pretended, more ambitious. When she was a little girl she wanted to save the world; cure cancer, end poverty, etc. In the end she’s a soldier fighting a war they’re bound to loose, and it’s been years since she got the chance to tell her Daddy she loves him.  
   There’s a _whoosh_ and a _crack_ and “Hello, there, Voldy.”  
   “You dare make fun of me? I, your lord and master?” he’s not as tall as she thought he’d be. She’s kind of disappointed.  
   “I have no master,” she snaps, and picks up her wand. She knows there’s no point fighting him, because if the whispers are true he’s bloody _immortal,_ but she’s going to die tonight and the least she can do is die her own way.  
   “I’d offer you a drink, but I kind of already drank it,” she says.  
   “You filthy halfbood –“  
   “Unoriginal, much?” she says, and blows herself up. She knows it’s too much to hope she’ll take him with her, but there’s just that _maybe, maybe I can._  
   And then there’s nothing.  
   It’s the end, of such a good life.

…


End file.
